


Heresy

by zynnser



Series: Approved Tolerance [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, thief!Hide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 21:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3784558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zynnser/pseuds/zynnser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were all going to die. The investigators would come in, Nishio would attack them with his <i>translucent blue tail</i>, and they would all fucking <i>die</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heresy

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to In His Own Way, although if you're new to the series it's up to you which one you want to read first. Heresy is the backstory about why Hide became a thief and some context for his friendship with Kimi and Nishio.
> 
> Thanks to [Kari](http://archiveofourown.org/users/neesha89/pseuds/Kari/) for the quick beta. Any mistakes you see have been reinserted into the fic without her permission.

Hide didn’t notice anything unusual until he left his history class.

The social sciences building at Kamii sat on the west side of campus, close to the main drag that let students feel like they were in the middle of downtown without actually leaving their bubble of academia. It was also, unfortunately, about as far away from the health sciences building as it could get, so Hide had a long way to go to meet up with Kimi and her boyfriend for lunch.

Hurtling down the stairs, Hide propelled himself into the lobby and toward the front doors. Food was calling his name.

“You! Stop!” shouted an authoritative voice from behind him. Hide turned, freezing in shock as he realized what he was seeing.

The man who had spoken was dressed in a black suit, which wasn’t all that abnormal. But he was also carrying a suitcase with a death grip on the handle, which was significantly less normal.

_CCG_ , Hide’s mind supplied as he took in the rest of the scene. The man - ghoul investigator - hadn’t been yelling at Hide, but instead at a freshman in Hide’s class who looked like he was about to piss his pants. Behind them stood a security scanner similar to the ones Hide knew airports used. It was silent but still flashing red; obviously the boy had set it off.

The freshman, Sato, Hide thought, remembering a shy hand raising to answer roll call on the first day of class, stumbled backward away from the investigator in a panic. Hide heard a click and the briefcase opened, transforming into an oblong sword that looked both horribly impractical and really _really_ sharp. The freshman apparently thought it looked scary too, because he found his feet and started to run away.

He was too slow.

Hide found himself staring in utter horror as the sword came down and Sato’s eyes flashed black and red before he collapsed forward onto the floor, blood pooling around his prone form. The investigator kept his guard up anyway as he approached. He kicked Sato in the ribs a little harder than necessary, checking to be sure he wouldn’t lash out before pulling out a pair of odd looking cuffs and securing his hands behind his back.

“Can I see your ID?”

It took Hide a moment to register that the words were directed at him, and another for him to fumble his student identification out of his backpack. He wordlessly offered it to the investigator, who looked over it and nodded approvingly at what he saw.

“Sorry about that,” he said conversationally as he returned Hide’s ID card, talking as if there wasn’t an injured person sprawled on the ground next to them. “We’ve gotten approval to root out the ghoul infestation at the university, and we have to deal with it quickly and decisively if we want to have a chance at success. It’ll probably get a little messy, so you might want to head home for the day.”

“Yeah,” Hide said, his mouth operating on autopilot as his brain tried to process the scene before him. The investigator. His classmate. The _blood_ , dear god. “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

The investigator hummed absently at him, his attention focused on Sato’s body - or was he still alive? - on the floor.

His classmate. Class.

Kimi.

Sensations came crashing back through him in a dizzying rush, leaving Hide feeling slightly nauseous as he hurried out the door and made a beeline for the health sciences building.

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as Hide watched people move around, feeling like a fish in an aquarium. He counted six more investigators carrying briefcases wandering around campus in what had to be an organized patrol. No one else seemed to notice though, and Hide found himself wondering if he was just imagining things.

But no, there was a student with a blue jacket and a medical eyepatch staring at the ground and skittishly avoiding one of the investigators. Hide wasn’t the only one.

Which meant that either the CCG weren’t finding many ghouls or that the other investigators were doing a better job of staying under the radar than the one in his building.

He wasn’t sure which option he liked better.

The walk to Kimi’s building seemed to take forever and no time at all, and Hide was blindly pushing past the throng of students waiting to get their ID’s checked and running up the stairs toward Kimi’s classroom before he really registered being in the building. Waiting outside her classroom, Hide could hear the chatter of students and the shuffling of papers that indicated the end of lecture, and he found himself unusually grateful for the professor’s habit of holding the class late.

The door opened and Hide watched as the students streamed out, gossiping about their classmates and making plans for lunch. As soon as Kimi stepped out, Hide latched onto her and pulled her away from the flow.

“Hide,” she said, her tone conveying an unspoken question about his unusual greeting.

“We need to get Nishio and leave,” Hide said, voice tense and shaky. “The CCG are here and they’re killing people and we need to _leave_.”

Kimi’s neutral expression slid off her face and was replaced by the harsher, more businesslike look she always wore when they were going on one of their extralegal adventures. “They’re not here for us though,” she said, the words coming out as a statement rather than a question.

“I don’t think so,” Hide replied, taking a deep breath trying not to think about the ever increasing number of crimes he and Kimi had committed in the wake of her family’s death. He usually managed to rationalize it to himself by saying that while breaking and entering was _technically_ illegal, they were just leaving little presents to say _someone was here_ rather than stealing or destroying anything so it didn’t qualify as the _bad_ sort of illegal. And it wasn’t as though they were _ghouls_ , so the idea that the CCG might be here for them was so ludicrous it was laughable.

But what they did was still illegal. And the CCG was still a form of law enforcement.

It set Hide’s teeth on edge to be on campus with law enforcement of any kind, but normally he could deal with it. What he couldn’t deal with was the look of casual dismissal on the officer’s face when he’d cut down Sato and explained it away with an _oh, he’s just a ghoul._

Kimi’s hand on his wrist pulled him back into the present. “Come on,” she said, tugging him toward the stairs. “We can collect Nishiki from his office and then we can go.”

Hide nodded and followed her up the stairs to Nishio’s office. Perks of being a graduate student, which he never failed to mention when Hide was in the room. The guy was a grade A jerk and an enabler, but he had a soft spot for Kimi that was a mile wide. Even if Hide didn’t like him personally he could see how much Nishio meant to Kimi, and he’d have to have been a terrible friend to get in the way of that.

“Nishiki!” Kimi called out, pushing her way into the office without knocking. “Lunch time!”

Nishio spun his chair around to face them, expression fading from elated to irritated when he saw the way Kimi was dragging Hide behind her.

“Let me finish grading these last few papers and then we can go,” he said, smiling up at Kimi and turning back to his computer.

Hide shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Kimi to see if she was as eager to get out as he was. She wasn’t, not quite, but she could obviously read his uneasiness and gave him a reassuring smile. Walking over to the desk, she hopped up to sit beside Nishio’s computer and winked at Hide in a way that told him she’d have them out of there in under a minute.

“Lame,” she declared keeping her voice level and calm as she nudged his chair with her foot. “Class already ran over and we’re hungry. Plus the CCG is patrolling on campus, and the sooner we’re out the better we’ll feel.”

The clacking noise of the keyboard stopped abruptly as Nishio froze, turning almost cautiously to look at Kimi.

“What.”

“The CCG are on campus,” she repeated slowly, clearly just as confused as Hide about what had set him off. Nishio knew about the way they dabbled in crime, sometimes even went along with them, but the magnitude of his reaction was way out of proportion to a few counts of breaking and entering.

“Shit,” Nishio hissed, whirling away from Kimi and oh.

Oh.

Those weren’t human eyes.

Nishio bent forward, running his hands through his hair before tightening them into fists. “ _Shit_.”

Kimi looked over at Hide as if to ask what was wrong, and Hide realized Nishio had turned around before she’d been able to see his eyes go black and red.

“Um,” he stammered, unsure how he was expected to handle discovering that his best friend’s boyfriend was a ghoul, let alone telling her. “I think we might need to hide.”

“We might need to hide?” Kimi repeated, testing out the words and looking for a second meaning. Hide could see the moment when it clicked, and was incredibly grateful that he wouldn’t need to spell it out for her. Kimi shook her head in disbelief and looked to Nishio for answers. “Nishiki...?”

Nishio didn’t answer.

“Nishiki, do we need to hide?” Kimi asked again, this time moving to rest her hand on his shoulder. She squeezed and pulled him around to face her, and Hide turned to watch the door and give them a moment of privacy while they sorted themselves out.

In general, Hide had nothing against ghouls. People just want to live, and Hide had never bought into the propaganda that ghouls were something subhuman because of their diet. Not to say that seeing Nishio’s eyes change color hadn’t scared the shit out of him, but it wasn’t because he thought that Nishio would intentionally put them in harm’s way.

But ghouls didn’t exactly have easy lives, and that could negate even the best of intentions.

The easiest thing to do would be for Hide and Kimi to leave by themselves; the CCG wasn’t after them and they could walk out the front door unscathed. But that would mean leaving Nishio to fend for himself against a swarm of CCG investigators armed to the teeth or turning him in themselves, neither of which were viable courses of action. And if they weren’t going to turn tail and flee, there was really only one option: pulling Nishio’s ass out of the fire.

The only question was if they should run or hide?

From what Hide had seen in his building, they should hide. Running would only get them caught, and he felt fairly confident that Nishio wouldn’t be able to fight his way out. Not to mention that he and Kimi would be brought in as accomplices, and the penalties for harboring a ghoul were steeper than any of the other charges that could be leveled against them.

“I’m going to give you ten seconds to cover up anything I don’t want to see, and then I’m going to turn around so we can figure this out,” Hide said loudly, resolutely ignoring any shuffling sounds that may or may not have been coming from behind him.

Nothing was out of place when he turned around; Kimi was perched on the armrest of Nishio’s chair like she belong there and Nishio was leaning heavily against her side. The only thing that set it apart from the scene Hide encountered on a near daily basis was the otherness in Nishio’s eyes and the way his chin was tilted as if he was daring Hide to say something about it.

Hide ignored the challenge and plowed right into the matter at hand. “So they’ve got these airport scanner things set up at the bottom of the stairs that detect ghouls, and they’ve got an investigator monitoring them and checking student ID’s.”

Nishio’s eyes narrowed at the mention of scanners, and Hide took that to mean he’d heard of them before. And if he’d heard of them, it probably meant they worked.

Bummer.

“Every staircase?” Kimi asked, focusing on their options. “The back staircase doesn’t get used much. It might have been overlooked.”

“I didn’t check,” Hide said, with a shake of his head. “But I don’t think we should chance it. It would be worse to be seen approaching and then turn around than it would to just not go at all.”

“What about if one of us went?” Kimi suggested. “Me, that is. I’d pass through with no problem and I’m not particularly memorable. If all the exits are covered, I should be able to get back in and tell you without raising any suspicions.”

“No,” Hide said, hearing his denial echoed immediately by Nishio.

“I’m willing to bet that’s why they’re checking our ID’s,” Hide reasoned. “You might be able to slip by in a crowd, but it’s not worth the risk. Especially now that most people have already left.”

“And we don’t want you to go by yourself,” Nishio followed up, punctuating his words by reaching out and squeezing Kimi’s hand.

Kimi deflated at the touch, nodded her acceptance of their refusal. “So we hide,” she said, reiterating Hide’s earlier suggestion like a final plan. “Any idea where?”

Hide shook his head, trying to recall the building layout. He didn’t spend enough time in the health sciences building to be able to locate much other than Kimi’s classes and Nishio’s office, so he didn’t even know what their options were.

Thankfully, Nishio did. “The dean’s office is on the third floor,” he offered, shrugging at the sharp glance Kimi sent him. “Professor Ito is a hardass, but he’s also got some strong opinions about the privacy of his office. Since he’s out today, it’ll be locked and no one will be allowed to go in.”

“Do you actually think they won’t look in there?” Hide asked, his disbelief showing through. “If they’re really searching for the ghouls on campus, wouldn’t they check places like that?”

Nishio shot him a look despairing of his education. “You want to hide in the janitor’s closet?”

Hide wrinkled his nose at the thought, because no. Just no. There were too many reasons to list.

“Thought so,” Nishio said with a smirk. “And they aren’t likely to check the dean’s office unless they’re suspicious that someone has broken in.”

“By which I assume you mean smashed windows and general destruction rather than lockpicking,” Kimi said cheerfully, relief evident in her voice. Hide rolled his eyes at her optimism, but he had to admit that it wasn’t a bad plan. It certainly beat trying to sneak past the investigators.

“So can we go?” he asked impatiently. “Now? Because I’ve got a bad feeling and it’s getting worse the longer we stay here.”

Looping an arm around Kimi to keep her balanced, Nishio spun back around to face the computer. “Yeah,” he said, saving his files and closing the applications. “Just let me shut this down first. Don’t want anyone thinking I left in a hurry.”

It took another few excruciating seconds for the computer to flash up the log out screen and start to shut down, and Hide was practically vibrating by the time Nishio pushed the chair back and stood.

“I’ll follow you,” Hide said, opening the door and holding it for them. Kimi went out first, scanning the hallway before starting to lead the way to the back staircase. Nishio followed after her, and Hide brought up the rear, looking over his shoulder more than was strictly necessary to make sure no one was watching.

By the time they got to the third floor, Hide was a nervous wreck.

He knew, objectively, that walking down the hallway wasn’t considered suspicious behavior, but he couldn’t shake the mental image of how Sato’s body had looked laid out on the floor in a pool of his own blood. And as disturbing as that thought was, it was only made worse by the way his brain kept whispering _that’s what they want to do to Nishio_ at him.

Hide was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he managed to miss Kimi’s _all clear_ sign and Nishio had to drag him out of the stairwell into the hallway.

“Last door on the right,” Nishio said, pointing Kimi toward a heavy door with an inlaid window.

“You didn’t say there was a window _in the door_ ,” Hide hissed, turning to watch the hall as Kimi pulled out her lockpick set.

“It’s not like I can do anything about it,” Nishio replied testily. “And you can’t see the full office. There are still plenty of places to stay out of sight.”

Hide sighed irritably, but didn’t say anything: Nishio was right and Hide wasn’t in the mood to be a gracious loser.

Behind them, Kimi let out a distressed sound as the noises of metal on metal stopped. “Hide, I can’t get the lock.”

Hide took a deep breath and willed himself to sound calmer than he felt. “You can do it. Just take your time.”

Kimi gave a high pitched whine, but Hide heard her pick up her tools again for another go at the lock.

“Put pressure on the lock and test each spring in the tumbler,” Hide said quietly, starting to walk her through the steps like they used to do for each other when they had just started learning. “When you feel one that’s stiff, gently push it up until it clicks. Got it? Do it again. Feel for another spring that’s stiffer than the others. It could be behind the last one or in front; check all of them before you panic. I heard a second click. Good. Do it again, three more to go and you’re in. Don’t rush, try the springs one at a time.”

“Hide. _Hide_ ,” Kimi interrupted, her voice wet and heavy. “Hide, I can’t do it. Switch with me.”

Trying to take his own advice and not panic, Hide turned and took the lockpick from Kimi. He knelt in front of the door and took a steadying breath before slipping the tool into the lock and getting to work.

The first pin clicked in to place and Hide felt a feral joy rising in him at the sound. It only took a few more seconds to for the second and third pins to slide into place, and Hide grinned at his good luck.

“I hear footsteps,” Nishio whispered, pulling Hide out of his zone and back into the present.

“Two more,” Hide informed him, focusing on the lock and hearing the fourth pin slide into place for his efforts.

“I can hear them too,” Kimi said, sounding more frightened than Hide had ever heard her. “Please hurry.”

The last pin clicked into place.

“We’re in!” Hide said in a low voice, turning the handle and opening the door. Kimi and Nishio wasted no time in ducking inside, pulling Hide in with them and closing the door behind him.

“Lock it,” Nishio hissed from behind Hide. “Lock it and let’s get out of sight.”

Hide watched Kimi reach up and close the deadbolt, his head still a little too fuzzy from the adrenaline rush to process anything else.

“Behind the desk,” Nishio said, half-leading half-carrying Kimi and Hide around to the opposite side of the large wooden desk that sat in the middle of the room.

“They’re less likely to see us if we stay up against the wall by the door,” Kimi protested weakly.

“But they’ll be less likely to look here if they have the keys to the door,” Nishio countered.

Hide couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh. “If they have the keys to the door, we are fucked.”

Nishio glared, but didn’t have a comeback for that. Hide wished he could have taken pride on getting one up on Nishio, but the current situation had sapped all of the humor out of him.

Cold blooded murder tended to do that.

They sat in silence for a while, watching the clock as the minutes ticked by. The tension in the room didn’t so much fade as it settled into the background, creating a thick wall around them as they strained for any sign that the CCG might have left.

Or that they were coming.

Nishio tensed beside him, and Hide’s felt his heart leap heart leap into his throat at the unspoken warning. Sure enough, a few seconds later he heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Everyone’s out for lunch and we already checked the classrooms on the second floor, I don’t get why we have to sweep the place too,” complained a male voice from the hallway.

“Lots of students stay over lunch to do work, and we need to make sure we scan everyone,” said a calmer, deeper voice.

“Yeah,” replied the first, “but it’s not like we won’t be able to catch them at the end of the day. I don’t get why we have to do this now.”

“We’re doing this now and we’re doing this again after classes end. We have to be thorough in order to root out this infestation,” the second voice replied, clearly rehashing a routine argument.

“I still don’t think it’s going to help,” the first voice said wearily. “But I know how to do my job. Lead on.”

The voices stopped, and Hide strained to hear whether the footsteps were approaching or not as the two men walked down the hallway.

The sound of a door opening in the hallway nearly made him jump out of his skin.

“Clear,” said the first voice a few moments later.

The door closed and Hide held his breath as the hallway went quiet again. He heard the shuffling of fabric beside him, and looked over to see Nishio and Kimi shifting into a more comfortable position. Nishio seemed to relax a little, some of the stiffness easing out of him now that Kimi was resting her head on his shoulder. Hide met Kimi’s gaze and they shared a moment of silent appreciation for her ability to calm Nishio down.

A loud squeak echoed down the hallway, closer this time, and any good Kimi had managed to do disappeared as Nishio went rigid again.

“Clear,” the voice said again.

“We don’t know that they’ll come check in here,” Hide whispered, trying to sound like he wasn’t panicking just as much as Nishio. “And even if they do, it doesn’t sound like they’re using keys.”

Another door opened.

“It doesn’t sound like they need to,” Nishio gritted out. “Would you _shut up_?”

It was clear that the men in the hallway were coming closer, so Hide took Nishio’s advice and stayed quiet. Given the acoustics of the dean’s office and the fact that they were keeping their voices down, Hide doubted that the investigators would be able to hear him from the hallway. But even if they couldn’t, it was apparent that his habit of talking through stressful situations didn’t help Nishio the way it did Kimi.

“Clear.”

If there had been any room for doubt the investigators were getting closer, it was gone now. Not that there was really anything he could do about it, but just the knowledge that they were closer was making Hide’s breath shorten and his heart catch.

Hide sucked in a deep breath through his nose, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out in an effort to keep himself from hyperventilating. By the third breath, he felt himself starting to relax.

_Crack._

The sudden noise took any semblance of calm Hide had managed to gather and threw it to the wind. Whirling around to face the source of the sound, Hide saw a blue appendage wrapping itself around Nishio’s leg.

“What are you-”

“Clear.”

“What are you _doing_?” Hide hissed, trying desperately to keep his voice low as the panic he’d been trying to suppress firmly reasserted itself. _“Are you crazy?”_

“What if they come in?” Nishio whispered back. “What then? I will not be fucking defenseless.”

“And how are we supposed to get away if we leave _two bodies lying on the floor oh my god_.” Hide stopped himself before he could really get going, hanging his head between his knees and trying to focus on anything except the current situation.

“Clear.”

Silence followed in the wake of the voice outside speaking again, this time almost right outside the door.

The door rattled.

“This one is locked.” And okay, the voice was directly outside the door. Which meant the investigator was directly outside the door. Which was not something Hide wanted to be thinking about.

“Dean’s office,” said the second voice, tapping the sign to the side of the door. “He doesn’t come in on Tuesdays, so we’ll have to get a janitor to open the door for us.”

Hide saw Nishio’s kagune tighten around his leg and felt his blood run cold. Kimi put a hand on Nishio’s shoulder, leaning on him as if she could physically hold him down with her weight.

They were all going to die. The investigators would come in, Nishio would attack them with his _translucent blue tail_ , and they would all fucking _die._

“Janitor’s out at lunch,” the first voice tossed out casually. Hide’s heart skipped a beat. “We can just come back at the end of our shift. We’re manning all the exits; it’s not like anyone will be able to get out without us knowing.”

_Please,_ Hide thought desperately, hoping the investigators would just leave. _Please please please please please._

The second man made a disgruntled noise and rattled the doorknob again. No. Shit no. _Nonononono._

“If the janitor is out, I guess there isn’t much we can do about it.”

_Oh thank fuck._

“Well if we can’t get in, we’ve got other rooms to check,” the first voice prompted, shoes sounding pointedly heavy against the floor as he walked away.

There was another irritated sigh from outside the door, from the second man this time. He grumbled something inaudible at the door, then walked off in the same direction his colleague had gone.

Hide didn’t relax until he’d heard them check out three more rooms, getting further away from the dean’s office with each one.

“So,” Hide said, breaking the silence that had descended once the investigators had walked out of human hearing range. He wasn’t exactly sure what he planned on saying, but he knew they needed to come up with a plan. Sitting around and waiting for the CCG to come back with a key was not a viable option.

Kimi looked over at him, nestling closer to Nishio and running her hand up and down his back until he huffed out a breath and let his kagune dissolve away into nothing. And really, sometime when Hide wasn’t terrified for his life, he was going to do some research on that because _where the hell did it go?_

“So...?” Kimi prompted, dragging Hide back to the present.

“So we need to come up with a plan?” Hide said, stating the obvious. “I really don’t want to wait for Tweedledee and Tweedledum to figure out how to open the door and chop off our heads, so we need to leave. Somehow. Soon.”

“By five,” Nishio supplied. “We need to leave by five.”

Hide stared at him, hoping for an explanation or a continuation or anything, really. Nishio didn’t oblige.

“Why five?” Kimi asked, and Hide wanted to hug her. No matter what type of situation they were in, he could count on Kimi stay rational enough to take control and organize a plan of action.

“The investigator was muttering about his shift being over at five,” Nishio said. “He sounded like he was counting down the minutes.”

“That’s a lot of minutes,” Hide said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was just past one now, so they had almost four hours to come up with a plan and implement it.

“Did he say anything else?” Kimi asked, pressing the necessary details. “Like where they have investigators stationed or who was stationed where?”

“They said they’ve got all the doors covered,” Hide reminded her. “So it follows that they have scanners and investigators on both the staircases too.”

“I heard that part,” Kimi said, looking back to Nishio to see if he would be able to clarify.

Nishio sighed and pushed his glasses up. “He didn’t say anything specific, but he’s probably the one stationed at the back staircase. I can’t imagine they’d leave their best and brightest where there is almost no chance of actually running into ghouls.”

Kimi nodded in agreement. “Okay, so if we have to go out the door, the back staircase is our best bet.”

“We do have to go out the door,” Hide said.

Nishio snorted in disagreement.

“No really, we do,” Hide said again. “The windows in this building don’t open wide enough to fit people through, and don’t you think that with the heightened security that _someone_ would notice three students _smashing a window_ and climbing down when there are perfectly serviceable doors not twenty meters away? They’d be on us before we even got to the ground.”

“We could jump,” Nishio pointed out.

“No,” Hide argued. “No we can’t. _You_ could jump, but that would mean you’d either have to carry us, or we’d have to leave you. And then we’d have to explain what we were doing in a room where someone just _obliterated the window_.”

“Hide’s right,” Kimi put in, running her hand along Nishio’s arm in a soothing motion. “And if we can’t guarantee that we all get away then it’s not a good plan. Risking injury on a three story fall that will undoubtedly attract a lot of attention should be a last resort, not the first course of action.”

Nishio refrained from responding, but it was obvious he thought they should go with the window plan.

“So if we can’t leave through a window, we’ll have to go out the door,” Hide prompted.

“And to do that, we have to pass the CCG investigators at the bottom of the stairs,” Kimi said, carrying Hide’s thought through to its logical conclusion. “The front staircase gets the most traffic, so we’d be more likely to be able to blend in there.”

“And the back staircase gets less traffic so the CCG officers are likely to be less experienced and more easily fooled,” Hide said, offering the other side of the argument.

“Yes, we know,” Nishio snapped, clearly unhappy with the way they were rehashing what they’d already discussed. “So what are we going to _do_?”

“Stealth tactics or confusion tactics?” Hide asked, ignoring Nishio and directing his question to Kimi.

“Confusion tactics,” Kimi said firmly. “The less experienced the investigator the better our chances of getting Nishio out unnoticed.”

Hide glanced over at Nishio to gauge his reaction, but couldn’t get a read off of him. He had serious doubts that they’d manage to get out unnoticed, but he agreed that their chances of getting out without any gaping wounds were higher with a less experienced investigator.

“Okay,” Hide said, filling in the silence when it became obvious Nishio wasn’t going to comment. “So how do we get past him unnoticed? Nishio is going to set off the alarms on the scanner; there’s no way we can get around that.”

Kimi thought about it for a moment. “How does the scanner work?”

“It checks Rc cell count,” Nishio said, rejoining the conversation. “We can’t fool it.”

“It’s silent,” Hide said. “I saw one go off when I was leaving my building; there’s no noise. They’re probably trying to keep the general student body from panicking.”

Kimi paused before answering, giving him a look that asked if he’s okay. Hide nodded, trying to shove the memory of the way the blood pooled on the floor out of his mind.

“I’m sorry,” Kimi said softly, waiting for Hide to gather himself before continuing. “So what I’m hearing is that if we keep his attention away from the scanner he won’t notice when Nishiki sets it off.”

“Maybe,” Hide allowed, his voice rough as he remembered how the scanner had continued flashing even after Sato had passed through it. “But it doesn’t turn off. Maybe the investigators have to turn it off? We’d have to keep his attention for a while.”

Kimi nodded, as if she’d expected something along those lines. “Then the two of us will go through first and engage him in conversation. He’s supposed to check our ID’s, so we’ll catch his attention then. While we’ve got him wrapped up, Nishiki will come down and head out.”

Nishio frowned and curled his arm around Kimi’s waist, holding her close. “And what happens when you have to leave and he turns around to see the alarm flashing? What happens when he figures out you helped me get out?”

“We run,” Kimi replied. “If we can get out of the building without being detained, we can make it off campus. We’ll have a straight shot out once we get through the door, and if everything goes right we can walk out together. If not, we’ll meet up at the internet cafe by the train station.”

“We’d be able to do that if we went out the window too,” Nishio pointed out. “And it would probably take a few minutes before anyone even figured out we were gone.”

“But that relies on no one getting injured on the way down,” Hide argued. “And I know ghouls are tough and heal fast and whatnot, but Kimi and I aren’t and if we get injured we won’t be able to get away.”

“And don’t say that you could carry us,” Kimi continued, cutting off Nishio before he could protest. “We’d slow you down and we’d be conspicuous; two things we can’t afford. I know you don’t like it, but we’re not letting you do this alone and this is the best shot we have of making it out together.”

“Fine,” Nishio relented. “But you know that there won’t be any coming back from this. The investigator will know your faces and he’ll put you in the database of ghoul sympathizers. You’ll be flagged every time someone puts your name in the system. You won’t be able to get honest work.”

Kimi looked questioningly over at Hide and he shrugged in response. He figured they’d passed the point of no return when they agreed to help Nishio rather than running screaming into the afternoon. Or maybe they’d passed it when he’d taken Kimi out for their first foray into breaking and entering, giggling with the adrenaline rush and glorying in being alive only days after her family’s funeral.

Honestly, Hide didn’t really care. It was too late to turn back now, and he wouldn’t even if he could. His friends were the most important thing in his life, and there was more than one way to earn a living off the books.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kimi said firmly, and Hide nodded in agreement. “We’ll figure something out once we’re safe.”

Nishio’s gaze darted between Kimi and Hide like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Then he shook his head and buried his face in Kimi’s shoulder. “You’re idiots,” he mumbled.

Hide smiled at Kimi and she grinned back, reading Nishio’s gratitude and acceptance in his actions. They’d be okay.

Now all they had to do was wait.

Even under the best of circumstances, the three hours until they could move out would have seemed like forever. But with the CCG less than two floors away ready and waiting to identify and eliminate all of them, it was worse than normal.

It didn’t help that Hide could hear Kimi and Nishio making out behind his back. He got it. Really, he did. Getting out of life threatening situations tended to bring out the endorphins, and hormone highs tended to make people a little more touchy feely than normal.

But _god_. They hadn’t made their escape yet and things could still go very very wrong. And did they really have to be all over each other when Hide was _right there_?

“Time to go,” Hide said the instant the second hand ticked over to declare it ten til. “We want to get there when he’s tired but before the new guard arrives, we need to go now.”

“Okay,” Kimi said, shifting forward and rising to her feet. “Ready.”

Hide stood and turned around to face her. She looked innocuous enough, like an average student at the end of a long day and definitely not a soon-to-be-professional criminal who was trying to keep her ghoul boyfriend beneath the CCG’s radar.

Apparently he didn’t pass muster though, because Kimi pursed her lips and reached out to adjust his clothing and ruffle his hair. “You look like you’ve been sitting on the floor for the past four hours,” she explained.

“Well maybe I have been,” Hide said with a small laugh, glad for Kimi’s ability to lighten the mood. “You ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied, stepping up beside him as they made their way to the door. “Nishiki, remember that you can’t come into view until we have him occupied.”

“I remember,” Nishio said, rolling his eyes and walking over to stand next to Kimi. “Kiss for luck?”

“For luck,” she agreed, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

“Here goes,” Hide said, unlocking the office door and pushing it open.

The staircase seemed much more intimidating in the late afternoon light than it had when they’d rushed up it four hours earlier, and Hide found himself thankful for Kimi’s steady presence at his side.

“Only two more weeks until the exam,” Kimi said, starting up their agreed upon conversation topic as they approached the bottom of the stairs. “Do you think it’ll have anything on the way antifungal drugs interact with healthy cells?”

“Probably,” Hide said as the bottom floor came into view. “I don’t think the professor would spend time going over something in class if it wasn’t going to be on the test.”

“True,” Kimi agreed, sighing heavily as they reached the bottom of the stairs and passed through the gate. “I hope it’s not too specific though.”

The investigator cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said politely. “May I please see your ID’s?”

Hide sent Kimi a look of false confusion and started patting himself down for his ID. He purposely failed to find it, and followed Kimi across the room when she walked over to a chair to set down her backpack and pull out her wallet.

“Here,” she said, sliding the card out of its slot and handing it to the investigator. “I didn’t know they were putting in new security.”

“It’s only temporary,” the investigator said, glancing between the picture on Kimi’s ID and her face. “The administration was concerned about the high level of ghoul activity in the nearby residential areas, so we got called to campus to make sure the students are safe.”

“Oh,” Kimi said, eyes going wide and glancing back at Hide. “Do you think the ghouls are hiding on campus?”

“It’s possible,” the investigator said, handing back her ID. “College campuses are a very diverse place, so it would be easy for a ghoul to blend in with the students.”

“That’s awful,” Kimi said, frowning dramatically as she repacked her bag. “Kamii is such a supportive community, I can’t imagine what it would take for someone to want to exploit that.”

The investigator smiled politely. “Ghouls aren’t people. They don’t think about things that way.”

“I guess,” Kimi said, trailing off and turning to look at Hide. “Do you need help?”

“No?” Hide said with a scowl, slinging off his backpack and checking several of the smaller pockets before opening the one that contained his wallet. “No. I’ve got it.”

Hide pulled it out and flipped through it, taking his time finding his student ID as he watched Nishio descend the last few stairs.

“Here it is,” he exclaimed, making a show of grabbing the card and holding it out to the investigator. “Sorry, I forgot where I stashed it this morning. It’s been a long day.”

“It certainly has,” the investigator agreed, squinting at Hide’s picture as Nishio slipped out the door.

Hide grinned. He’d redyed his hair since the picture was taken and he thought it looked a lot better now. Brown roots were okay up to a point, but his picture had been way past the acceptable limit. “I have to get it touched up every other month or so,” he said helpfully, running a hand through his hair.

The investigator stared at the picture for another moment before returning the ID. “I see,” he said unconvincingly. “Well, thank you for your time. You two have a wonderful evening.”

“Thank you!” Kimi said brightly, nudging Hide’s arm and leading him toward the door.

They almost made it outside before he noticed.

“What- hey! Wait!”

“So close,” Kimi muttered, ignoring the investigator in favor of dragging Hide out the door.

Hide sighed as the cool air brushed against his face. “Plan C then?” He hated Plan C.

“Yup. Don’t make me go looking for you,” she said, dropping his arm and breaking off to join a cluster of girls who were walking toward the student center.

Hide spun around and went the other direction, ducking behind the corner of the building as the door banged open behind him.

“Wait! Wait, what-” the investigator trailed off, clearly looking for the couple who had just left his building and coming up empty handed. Hide tried not to look too smug as he walked away, meandering down a route that would take him to their agreed meeting point and away from Kamii for good.

He might have just thrown away an education at one of the most exclusive universities in Japan, but as he walked off campus and onto the bustling downtown streets, Hide couldn’t bring himself to regret it. 


End file.
